Re: zero memory

From:
Gianni Mariani <gi3nospam@mariani.ws>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Fri, 06 Apr 2007 05:39:34 -0700
Message-ID:
<46163f86$0$17251$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>
ajk wrote:

On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 16:49:52 -0500, "Christopher Pisz"
<someone@somewhere.net> wrote:

What is the C++ way to zero out memory after calling operator new on a
struct?

A constructor is not possible in this case nor is a class, because the
people using my code c-stlye cast a pointer to the first member of the
struct to a pointer to the entrire struct later on in the code.


so memset() should do the trick

"the c++ way" would be to have a class and to initialize it in the
ctor

e.g.

class CMYSTRUCT : public MYSTRUCT
{
public:
  CMYSTRUCT() {
   memset(&overlapped,0,sizeof(overlapped)); mamajama=0; next=NULL; }


     You really want to avoid using memset. It will bite you one day.

     Try this:

     CMYSTRUCT() : MYSTRUCT( MYSTRUCT() ) {}

     But your problem does not end there :-(

};

Foo()
{
     PMYSTRUCT = new CMYSTRUCT;


In this case, you're calling new on CMYSTRUCT and I expect that you'll
call delete on a MYSTRUCT. That's undefined. Bad things will happen if
don't modify that habbit.

}

or make the MYSTRUCT a class


MYSTRUCT is a class.

I just thought of yet another way - this one will create a default
constructed or zero initialized POD object depending on what type of
pointer you're trying to assign it to.

struct InitObj
{
     template <typename T>
     operator T * ()
     {
         return new T();
     }
};

// usage - template automagically figures out which type to new
PMYSTRUCT * mys = InitObj();

int * z = InitObj();

Note the lack of a memset call and note that the code will work for POD
  types as well as non POD types.

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